43-477: Tennessee Pass may refer to: Tennessee Pass (Colorado) , a mountain pass between Eagle and Lake counties , Colorado , United States . Tennessee Pass Line , a closed rail line over the pass See also [ edit ] All pages with titles containing Tennessee Pass [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about distinct geographical locations with
86-698: A 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) gauge, whereas Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand have metre-gauge railways . Narrow-gauge trams, particularly metre-gauge, are common in Europe. Non-industrial, narrow-gauge mountain railways are (or were) common in the Rocky Mountains of the United States and the Pacific Cordillera of Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia , Greece, and Costa Rica. A narrow-gauge railway
129-434: A capacity of 18.5 cubic feet per second (0.52 m /s) and in an average year diverts approximately 1,000 acre-feet (1.2 × 10 ^ m ). A second ditch was constructed at Tennessee pass in 1929, the 6-mile (9.7 km) Wurts Ditch. This was built by William Wurts to provide irrigation water, but Pueblo purchased this ditch in 1938, and in 1953, they extended the ditch another 6.5 miles (10.5 km) westward along
172-425: A curve with standard-gauge rail ( 1435 mm ) can allow speed up to 145 km/h (90 mph), the same curve with narrow-gauge rail ( 1067mm ) can only allow speed up to 130 km/h (81 mph). In Japan and Queensland, recent permanent-way improvements have allowed trains on 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) gauge tracks to exceed 160 km/h (99 mph). Queensland Rail 's Electric Tilt Train ,
215-455: A design speed of 137 km/h (85 mph). Curve radius is also important for high speeds: narrow-gauge railways allow sharper curves, but these limit a vehicle's safe speed. Many narrow gauges, from 15 in ( 381 mm ) gauge to 4 ft 8 in ( 1,422 mm ) gauge, are in present or former use. They fall into several broad categories: 4 ft 6 in ( 1,372 mm ) track gauge (also known as Scotch gauge)
258-474: A heavy-duty narrow-gauge line is Brazil's EFVM . 1,000 mm ( 3 ft 3 + 3 ⁄ 8 in ) gauge, it has over-100-pound rail (100 lb/yd or 49.6 kg/m) and a loading gauge almost as large as US non-excess-height lines. The line has a number of 4,000-horsepower (3,000 kW) locomotives and 200-plus-car trains. Narrow gauge's reduced stability means that its trains cannot run at speeds as high as on broader gauges. For example, if
301-496: A maximum grade of 2%. The west side of the Tennessee Pass route has grades up to 3%. However, the east side of the Tennessee Pass has a maximum grade of only 1.4%. Southern Pacific ’s (SP) acquisition by The Denver & Rio Grande in 1988 made Tennessee Pass once again the preferred transcontinental route. SP had a central route from California through to Kansas via Donner Pass , Tennessee Pass and trackage rights on
344-503: A mine in Bohemia with a railway of about 2 ft ( 610 mm ) gauge. During the 16th century, railways were primarily restricted to hand-pushed, narrow-gauge lines in mines throughout Europe. In the 17th century, mine railways were extended to provide transportation above ground. These lines were industrial , connecting mines with nearby transportation points (usually canals or other waterways). These railways were usually built to
387-825: A number of large 3 ft ( 914 mm ) railroad systems in North America; notable examples include the Denver & Rio Grande and Rio Grande Southern in Colorado; the Texas and St. Louis Railway in Texas, Arkansas and Missouri; and, the South Pacific Coast , White Pass and Yukon Route and West Side Lumber Co of California. 3 ft was also a common track gauge in South America, Ireland and on
430-664: Is a high mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States . The pass was named after Tennessee , the native state of a group of early prospectors. The pass traverses the Continental Divide north of Leadville in a gap between the northern end of the Sawatch Range to the west and the northern end of the Mosquito Range to the east. It connects the headwaters of
473-491: Is a track gauge of 1,000 mm ( 3 ft 3 + 3 ⁄ 8 in ). It has about 95,000 km (59,000 mi) of track. According to Italian law, track gauges in Italy were defined from the centre of each rail rather than the inside edges of the rails. This gauge, measured 950 mm ( 3 ft 1 + 3 ⁄ 8 in ) between the edges of the rails, is known as Italian metre gauge . There were
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#1732782789148516-488: Is one where the distance between the inside edges of the rails is less than 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ). Historically, the term was sometimes used to refer to what are now standard-gauge railways , to distinguish them from broad-gauge railways , but this use no longer applies. The earliest recorded railway appears in Georgius Agricola 's 1556 De re metallica , which shows
559-537: Is the only existing trans-mountain alternative in Colorado to the Moffat Tunnel line, which often runs near capacity. The Tennessee Pass Line may be able to be used as an alternate route as trans-mountain rail demand grows due to increased development on the Western Slope or if the Moffat Tunnel were damaged or closed for any reason. Such an event would have a significant impact on Colorado, particularly on
602-653: The Arkansas River to the south with the upper valley of the Eagle River (in the watershed of the Colorado River ) to the north. The pass is traversed by U.S. Highway 24 , allowing access between Leadville and Interstate 70 in the Eagle Valley. The pass has a gentle approach on both sides with few steep gradients and no major hairpin curves . The summit of the pass is nearly level. The road over
645-1021: The Isle of Man . 900 mm was a common gauge in Europe. Swedish three-foot-gauge railways ( 891 mm or 2 ft 11 + 3 ⁄ 32 in ) are unique to that country and were once common all over the country. Today the only 891 mm line that remains apart from heritage railways is Roslagsbanan , a commuter line that connects Stockholm to its northeastern suburbs. A few railways and tramways were built to 2 ft 9 in ( 838 mm ) gauge, including Nankai Main Line (later converted to 3 ft 6 in or 1,067 mm ), Ocean Pier Railway at Atlantic City , Seaton Tramway ( converted from 2 ft ) and Waiorongomai Tramway . 800 mm ( 2 ft 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ) gauge railways are commonly used for rack railways . Imperial 2 ft 6 in ( 762 mm ) gauge railways were generally constructed in
688-535: The Uinta Basin Railroad construction project in Utah , the Tennessee Pass was expected to be reactivated for the shipment of trains loaded with waxy-crude Oil, due to the shortening of travel miles between Dotsero and Pueblo , where the trains enter the trackage rights at BNSF , bound for Gulf Coast refineries. Both Eagle County and environmental groups lobbied hard to put the project on hold for
731-501: The $ 8.8 million that the line was valued at. After a long battle in court, the ICC declared that they would not force a sale, but if other evidence was found, Colorado Pacific could re-file the report. As of October 2020 , Colorado Pacific attempted another forced sale, this time saying they’ll run passenger/excursion service over the route. Union Pacific responded by stating they were in active negotiations for Rio Grande Pacific to operate
774-587: The 500mm gauge tracks of their mine railway ; these locomotives were made by the Deutz Gas Engine Company ( Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz ), now Deutz AG . Another early use of internal combustion was to power a narrow-gauge locomotive was in 1902. F. C. Blake built a 7 hp petrol locomotive for the Richmond Main Sewerage Board sewage plant at Mortlake . This 2 ft 9 in ( 838 mm ) gauge locomotive
817-574: The Central Corridor rail tracks), or the Arkansas River , which runs adjacent to the Tennessee Pass tracks, would be catastrophic. Passenger rail service is proposed along the line. Tennessee Pass is the location of the first transbasin diversion project to move water from the Colorado River Basin over the continental divide to the Arkansas River . The 1.5-mile (2.4 km) Ewing Placer Ditch (or just Ewing Ditch)
860-952: The Philippines demonstrate that if track is built to a heavy-duty standard, performance almost as good as a standard-gauge line is possible. Two-hundred-car trains operate on the Sishen–Saldanha railway line in South Africa, and high-speed Tilt Trains run in Queensland. In South Africa and New Zealand, the loading gauge is similar to the restricted British loading gauge; in New Zealand, some British Rail Mark 2 carriages have been rebuilt with new bogies for use by Tranz Scenic (Wellington-Palmerston North service), Tranz Metro (Wellington-Masterton service), and Auckland One Rail (Auckland suburban services). Another example of
903-518: The Western Slope, since the railroads would be forced to move freight through Wyoming. The Royal Gorge Route Railroad currently offers scenic, tourist rail trips on 12 miles of the Tennessee Pass Line west of Cañon City. No freight has been shipped on the Tennessee Pass Line since 1997. Union Pacific began actively discussing the sale of the line to Colorado Pacific in 2019, for an amount of $ 10 million. Colorado Pacific wanted to pay only
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#1732782789148946-975: The coal industry. Some sugar cane lines in Cuba were 2 ft 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 699 mm ). 2 ft ( 610 mm ) gauge railways were generally constructed in the former British colonies. The U.S. had a number of railways of that gauge , including several in the state of Maine such as the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway . 1 ft 11 + 3 ⁄ 4 in ( 603 mm ), 600 mm ( 1 ft 11 + 5 ⁄ 8 in ) and 1 ft 11 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 597 mm ) were used in Europe. Gauges below 1 ft 11 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 597 mm ) were rare. Arthur Percival Heywood developed 15 in ( 381 mm ) gauge estate railways in Britain and Decauville produced
989-544: The fastest train in Australia and the fastest 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) gauge train in the world, set a record of 210 km/h (130 mph). The speed record for 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) narrow-gauge rail is 245 km/h (152 mph), set in South Africa in 1978. A special 2 ft ( 610 mm ) gauge railcar was built for the Otavi Mining and Railway Company with
1032-575: The former British colonies . 760 mm Bosnian gauge and 750 mm railways are predominantly found in Russia and Eastern Europe. Gauges such as 2 ft 3 in ( 686 mm ), 2 ft 4 in ( 711 mm ) and 2 ft 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 724 mm ) were used in parts of the UK, particularly for railways in Wales and the borders, with some industrial use in
1075-496: The former Missouri Pacific route from Pueblo, Colorado into Kansas . The Moffat Tunnel route was kept in use. In 1996, UP bought Southern Pacific. UP preferred the Moffat Tunnel for routing traffic. The last revenue train went over the Tennessee Pass on August 23, 1997. Soon after UP ran this last train, they applied to the Surface Transportation Board for permission to abandon the line. Currently,
1118-416: The line and were opposed to Colorado Pacific's bid. On December 31, 2020 Rio Grande Pacific subsidiary Colorado, Midland & Pacific Railway Company, announced it had entered in an agreement with Union Pacific to explore reopening, leasing and operating the line for both potential commuter and freight services. During 2022 and 2023 the Tennessee Pass route was at the center of controversy because, with
1161-593: The line became part of its extension to the Aspen area constructed in order to beat the Colorado Midland 's standard gauge route to the rich mining area. In 1890, a new standard gauge line was built from Pueblo , to Grand Junction , and jointly with the Colorado Midland Railway , a tunnel was constructed about 200 ft (61 m) below the summit. In 1945, the old Tennessee Pass Tunnel
1204-545: The line is not of much use as the former Missouri Pacific line to Pueblo has been partially abandoned so trains would have to travel from Denver south to Pueblo before heading west. The 12 mi (19 km) of the Tennessee Pass line through the Royal Gorge is currently operated by the Royal Gorge Route Railroad , who operates excursion trains out of Cañon City . On July 10, 2012, part of
1247-525: The old tunnel collapsed, creating a sinkhole that damaged U.S. Highway 24 and forced its temporary closure between Redcliff and Leadville . The newer tunnel was not damaged. A report released by the Colorado Department of Transportation on September 4, 2014 stated the following about the line: ...The Tennessee Pass line has been identified as significant to CDOT because of its potential to carry both passengers and freight, and because it
1290-575: The pass is generally open all year round, easily negotiable by most vehicles, and closes only during severe winter storms. The summit of the pass is the location of Ski Cooper , a ski area in the San Isabel National Forest operated by permit from the United States Forest Service . Most of the area is above the tree line, providing a panoramic view of the peaks of the Sawatch Range to visitors. The area
1333-527: The same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tennessee_Pass&oldid=1168313885 " Category : Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Tennessee Pass (Colorado) Tennessee Pass elevation 10,424 ft (3,177 m)
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1376-550: The same narrow gauge as the mine railways from which they developed. The world's first steam locomotive , built in 1802 by Richard Trevithick for the Coalbrookdale Company, ran on a 3 ft ( 914 mm ) plateway . The first commercially successful steam locomotive was Matthew Murray 's Salamanca built in 1812 for the 4 ft 1 in ( 1,245 mm ) Middleton Railway in Leeds . Salamanca
1419-1211: The south flank of the Eagle River valley. After extension, the ditch has a capacity of 100 cubic feet per second (2.8 m /s) and diverts an average of about 2,700 acre-feet (3.3 × 10 ^ m ) of water. Narrow gauge railroad A narrow-gauge railway ( narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ) standard gauge . Most narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm ( 1 ft 11 + 5 ⁄ 8 in ) and 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ). Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves , smaller structure gauges , and lighter rails ; they can be less costly to build, equip, and operate than standard- or broad-gauge railways (particularly in mountainous or difficult terrain). Lower-cost narrow-gauge railways are often used in mountainous terrain, where engineering savings can be substantial. Lower-cost narrow-gauge railways are often built to serve industries as well as sparsely populated communities where
1462-494: The time being, citing the potential risks of increased oil train traffic both in the Central Corridor and eventually through Tennessee Pass. One of the major concerns that both Eagle County and environmental groups indicated is that if a major derailment were to occur on the Central Corridor or Tennessee Pass route with the resulting Oil spill, the environmental consequences to the Colorado River (which runs adjacent to
1505-475: The traffic potential would not justify the cost of a standard- or broad-gauge line. Narrow-gauge railways have specialised use in mines and other environments where a small structure gauge necessitates a small loading gauge . In some countries, narrow gauge is the standard: Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Australian states of Queensland , Western Australia and Tasmania have
1548-565: The world; 19th-century mountain logging operations often used narrow-gauge railways to transport logs from mill to market. Significant sugarcane railways still operate in Cuba, Fiji, Java, the Philippines, and Queensland, and narrow-gauge railway equipment remains in common use for building tunnels. In 1897, a manganese mine in the Lahn valley in Germany was using two benzine -fueled locomotives with single cylinder internal combustion engines on
1591-525: Was adopted by early 19th-century railways, primarily in the Lanarkshire area of Scotland. 4 ft 6 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 1,384 mm ) lines were also constructed, and both were eventually converted to standard gauge. 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ) between the inside of the rail heads, its name and classification vary worldwide and it has about 112,000 kilometres (70,000 mi) of track. As its name implies, metre gauge
1634-563: Was also the first rack-and-pinion locomotive. During the 1820s and 1830s, a number of industrial narrow-gauge railways in the United Kingdom used steam locomotives. In 1842, the first narrow-gauge steam locomotive outside the UK was built for the 1,100 mm ( 3 ft 7 + 5 ⁄ 16 in )-gauge Antwerp-Ghent Railway in Belgium. The first use of steam locomotives on a public, passenger-carrying narrow-gauge railway
1677-533: Was constructed in 1880 and remains in use. It transfers water from Piney Creek east of the pass, a tributary of the Eagle River over the pass to the head of Tennessee Creek . The ditch may have originally been used to provide water for placer mining , but the Otero Canal Company used the water for irrigation before selling the ditch to the Pueblo Board of Water Works in 1955. The ditch has
1720-459: Was formerly a World War II training ground for United States Army troops of the 10th Mountain Division from nearby Camp Hale . A memorial to troops of the division is located at the summit of the pass. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad constructed a narrow gauge railroad over Tennessee Pass in 1881, first as a branch line to access mines near Red Cliff , but by the mid 1880s
1763-560: Was in 1865, when the Ffestiniog Railway introduced passenger service after receiving its first locomotives two years earlier. Many narrow-gauge railways were part of industrial enterprises and served primarily as industrial railways , rather than general carriers. Common uses for these industrial narrow-gauge railways included mining, logging, construction, tunnelling, quarrying, and conveying agricultural products. Extensive narrow-gauge networks were constructed in many parts of
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1806-592: Was probably the third petrol-engined locomotive built. Extensive narrow-gauge rail systems served the front-line trenches of both sides in World War I . They were a short-lived military application, and after the war the surplus equipment created a small boom in European narrow-gauge railway building. The heavy-duty 3 ft 6 in ( 1,067 mm ) narrow-gauge railways in Australia (Queensland), New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia and
1849-604: Was replaced by a newer tunnel. In recent times, the Rio Grande's Tennessee Pass line was the highest active mainline railroad mountain pass in the United States. The line, now owned by the Union Pacific (UP), is currently out of use but the tracks remain in place. Once the Moffat Tunnel and Dotsero Cutoff were constructed, the line through Tennessee Pass became a secondary route. The Moffat Tunnel route had
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